I think there's a fairly good chance I have West Nile.

Current Mood: blargh.

This topic is here mostly so I can show my buddy at work the pictures of my 4th of July trip in one easy place. I played 8 courses in one day, and took photos of each!

( many pictures under here. )

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Neil Diamond's version of Solitary Man

And now, two thoughts about socialism, as inspired by this silly discussion.

1. It seems to me that socialists are people who had mothers who didn't love them. Or at least didn't love them enough to impart any wisdom on them. My mother is the one who told me, as I'd hope your mothers told you, that Life Isn't Fair. This lesson appears to be rather lost on the socialists in that thread. They'd probably argue that life isn't fair now but that it should be, but I'm also not so sure that's true either. After all, you can be the world's most careful rabbit, never taking any chances and doing things as safely as possible and still get eaten by a hawk. I think it could be argued that life is unfair at a very basal level, and I'm just not sure that can be undone somehow. Especially by getting up and complaining about it at a socialist bookstore.

2. Is there anything as painful as reading things sociology/women's studies/etc. majors write? What is it with liberal arts folks? How can they take themselves seriously?!?

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Current Mood: about to go frisbee golfing!
Current Music: CNN

From here:

Pope says bone fragments found in St Paul's tomb

By Stephen Brown Stephen Brown – Sun Jun 28, 3:51 pm ET

ROME (Reuters) – Pope Benedict announced on Sunday that fragments of bone from the first or second century had been found in a tomb in the Basilica of St Paul in Rome, which he said confirmed the belief that it housed the apostle's remains.

"This seems to confirm the unanimous and undisputed tradition that these are the mortal remains on the Apostle Paul," the pontiff said at St Paul's-Outside-the-Walls, on the eve of the Feasts of St Peter and St Paul celebrated on Monday.

Peter and Paul are revered by Christians as the greatest early missionaries. Converting on the road to Damascus following a blinding vision of Jesus, Paul took the Gospel to pagan Greeks and Romans and met his martyrdom in Rome in about AD 65.

Christian tradition had it that St Paul was buried together with St Peter in a catacomb on the Via Appia, before being moved to the basilica erected in his honor. For centuries it was believed that his remains were buried beneath the altar...

Maybe they did some weird religious test I'm not aware of, like bringing in lepers to touch the bone fragments and seeing if it cured them, but I doubt it. So how, exactly, do we know that those bones belong to Paul? After all, the oldest picture of him was from 400 years after his death, so it's not like they're really current on where things were.

Oh, and as long as I'm posting articles with hilarious unlogic in them, here's some paleontologists visiting the creation museum. Good times.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Lucinda Williams - Jackson

There's nothing to do on the internet at 5 in the morning. Somebody entertain me!

Edit: Okay, I'm not bored anymore.

Current Mood: bored
Current Music: I fought the law, and the....law won!

Poll #1421255 Abba
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Does finding out your girlfriend knows every word to ABBA's "Super Trooper" necessitate a re-examination of the relationship?

And just so you know, I'm disqualifying all the votes from people on her friendslist who aren't on mine too. There will be no poll-crashing on my watch!

Current Mood: in terrible ear pain
Current Music: ABBA - Super Trooper

For the first time in four years, somebody that lives somewhere around me has set up a network that's a) pick-up-able through the brick building I live in and b) unsecured. This is the only post I've ever made from my apartment!

And I have nothing interesting to say! Shame, that!

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Michael Jackson - Billy Jean

I just dropped a tube and splashed blood all over my favorite pair of pants. Frickin' a.

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Music: gah!

Last night, my gym's nine TVs were showing just three different channels. On ESPN, live coverage of the most meaningless three days in sports, the baseball draft. On CNN, Larry King was interviewing the guys from Orange County Choppers. Yeah, it was pretty failtacular. The third choice was for The History Channel, which I will abbreviate THC because I'm childish enough to snicker at that. It had been many years since I last watched THC, so I went with option three.
( Oddly, there was no Hitler. Well, he did make a very brief appearance, but the show wasn't actually about him. Instead, it was even more awesomely terrible. )

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Shakira - Underneath Your Clothes

I am in the market for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. Thing is, there are about eleven bajillion of them out there. Anybody got a recommendation for me?

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Johnny Cash - Help Me

I'm very busy this week doing this Army application process. So this will be a very quick little entry.

1. It's hilarious when you're on a diet and everybody feels the need to tell you what they think is the best way to go about it. I've heard that I should eat a lot, that I should eat no carbs, that I should eat only fruit, and then Shee-ra Hambone's coworkers sent me this (....now with the correct address in it!), which I think works by replacing time normally spent eating with time spent trying to figure out what the hell that's all about.

2. Holy Christ, the Army requires a lot of paperwork. I need to get a copy of my high school diploma! Shouldn't the fact that I went to college indicate that I have one of those? Why do they need to see it?!? Gah!

3. ( Skull game under here! )

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: The Dresden Dolls - Modern Moonlight

I am not a small fellow. I'm 6'3", and have broad enough shoulders that I'd have to wear an XL tee-shirt even if I was in a concentration camp. Now, I'm also a heading-quickly-towards-being-30 American, so I am carrying a bit of extra weight. According to the Army's scale, that bit of extra weight actually makes up 13.33% of my total body mass. So, I'm officially on a diet. Hoo-frickin-ray.

Current Mood: bitchy
Current Music: The Chemical Brothers - Setting Sun

I have very smart friends. Yesterday's skulls were indeed platypuses. Sometimes I feel bad when I don't stump everybody, but then I realize that even though everybody knew that one, I could very easily stick a hyrax skull or something up there and get no responses at all*. Then I feel more like a responsible member of a community, which is what LJ is all about, right?
( keep reading for a really fun poll! yay! )

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Disc 2 of Norma

Say, this is an odd skull. Wonder what it could be?
( As usual, guess today, answer tomorrow. )

Current Music: Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit

1. I retconned those pictures I posted earlier so that they're viewable in the same zip code as the computer you're trying to view them on. Thanks, all, for the suggestions.

2. Speaking of retconning, wow, I thought Star Trek was freaking awesome. If you haven't seen it, you definitely need to.
( I don't know how many more points will be under here. I, as usual, am just making shit up as I go. )

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: T-bone Walker - Shake It Baby

Over the weekend (which is Sunday and Monday for me), Shee-ra Hambone and I went first to The Spam Museum, and then to Iowa. I'd type a little review of the trip, which was quite nice, except that work today kicked my butt and I'm tired as all get out. So instead, here's a very quick photographic overview. There might very well be more to come in the days ahead, but for now, this is it:
( Pictures under here. Nap to follow. Zzzzzzzzzz. )

HOLY HECK THOSE PICTURES ARE GIANT. Sorry about that. It's impossible to predict how photobucket will treat my pictures. Any suggestions as to how to smallify them somewhat would be most welcome. Is there html-fu that I'm not aware of that could do such a thing?

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Spam, spam, spam, spam....spammity spam spam spam!

So, pointy111 was bored by yesterday's math post. That's no good, but I still have more to say on the subject. So to keep his attention, today's post will include hot chicks in bikinis. And, as I'm an equal opportunity sort of guy, there'll be a hunk, too.
( If you work someplace where they'll be upset about that, don't click here. )

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: The Searchers - Love Potion #9

It has come to my attention that several people have read this journal and concluded that I'm a big dork. With posts normally full of skulls and 10k-word rants about how badly Dan Brown sucks, I can kind of understand how they'd decided this. It's not true, of course, and to those people who think it is, I only have one thing to say to them:
( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Beethoven violin sonata #8

Hey, do any of you have any decent suggestions about what to do when you're allergic to your girlfriend's three cats, but you like spending time with her at her place anyway? So far I've tried Target brand antihistamines (fake Zertek (...Xertek? Zertec? Zarteck?)), which may well have worked, but they were non-non-drowsy, and so turned me into Zombie Gwangi (...given my normal icon's lack of muscle, would that mean I had to be re-fleshed?). Today I'm trying Walgreen's brand non-drowsy Claritin knock-off. So far, and it's been four hours, it's been an utter and complete failure.

I could potentially just continue to go through the different brands, as they all have slightly different active molecules, and hope that eventually I find one that works. But at $10 a box, that's going to add up quickly. So I'm really hoping somebody out there in magic internet land has the suggestion that'll allow Future Me to type a message like this without having to continuously fight back the urge to itch his eyes off.

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: there's some Rilo Kiley in my head.

What a douchebag.

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Music: Queen & David Bowie - Under Pressure

So I have the linkification add-on for firefox, because I spend a lot of time at a dork site that doesn't allow any html. Linkification takes normal text and turns it into clickable links, which is very handy, in that it cuts out all of the control-v control-c business. Thing is, there's something odd about how it's working where it'll only make the first 20 characters of a link clickable. This, of course, means that it's not clickable at all. I think it might be a firefox problem, as it just randomly started up, and it might have started on the day I upgraded to whatever the latest edition of the browser is.

Anyway, I found out that linkification has something called "thorough mode", which it cautions will make page load times longer, but which restores complete functionality over on the message boards. So that was all well and good. Except that I have my LJ set to display the maximum number of entries at once (50-per-page, I think), and thorough mode made that load time noticeably longer. And since my computer is kind of a hunk of poo, it actually slowed down the entire browser.

So I went in and poked around some more, and it turns out that there's a "never linkify" setting. You have to input a domain name. I put in "livejournal.com", and nothing happened. So I tried "gwangi.livejournal.com", and voila! Problem fixed!

And yes, I am bad enough at computers to feel that this was an entry-worthy occurrence. I figured out what a domain is! I am INVINCIBLE!

Current Mood: impressed
Current Music: a bit from Don Giovanni

Thank all that's holy that I'm finally done with this terrible, terrible book. Here's the last part of my giant Dan Brown project. Parts one and two are here, if you missed them. And I mean "missed" in the "didn't see" way, not in the "longed for" way. Because let's face it, this was a lousy book.
( More spoilers under here for a book that you should be glad I'm spoiling for you, because that way, you'll never have to read it yourself. )

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: (the) Offspring - The Kids Aren't Alright

So, now that Chrysler's gone bankrupt, does this mean I don't have to send them my car payments any more?

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: Garth Brooks - Ain't Goin' Down...

1. Don't you think that swine flu would be a lot more badass if they called it Mexican Pig Flu?

2. Speaking of influenza, if any of you are at all interested, this is an excellent book.

3. It's okay, though, because Patient Zero of this outbreak says that ice cream cured him. He's only five, but I'm still putting my retirement savings into Ben & Jerry's. I figure I'll make a fortune.

4. Honestly, those facemasks are the silliest things ever. You look ridiculous, it doesn't stop the virus (which is much too small to be stopped by a surgical mask), and you look ridiculous.

5. In case you missed it, here's something funny that Michelle Bachmann said about the flu. Bum bum buuuuummmmmmm.

6. The really funny part, of course, is that the 1976 outbreak happened while Gerald Ford was in office. So close, Michelle, yet so far.

7. The math behind epidemics is very interesting. It's also really hard to type. I know that OpenOffice has something called "OpenOffice Math", but I've never used it. Do any of you have any idea about how it is? I'd just like to be able to stick equations into my journal somehow, so that I can explain things without having to resort to crap like sqrt(a/b) or whatever. I don't even know how I'd write a summation that way. "Sum(a,b)(equation)", maybe?

8. If you haven't been out to see the zoo's new Russian Coast exhibit, you totally need to go. It's pretty amazing.

9. Gawd, my much-beloved Colorado Rockies are lousy this year. They've won exactly one game where they've scored fewer than five runs, and that was a 3-0 victory on the second day of the season. Where in the heck do we find our pitchers?!?

10. I'm being a rebel and not lj-cutting this entry. Suck it, friendslist!

Current Mood: bored
Current Music: Pushmonkey - Car Bomb

My parents will be in town in just over 24 hours. This is the first time they've visited since I moved here 3.5 years ago. I have loads to do, including things like finally taking the snow shovel out of my car so that my mother can sit in it (...the car, not the shovel), so I won't have anything of substance to post for the next several days. And hey, if you can avoid having interesting life crises until next Tuesday evening, I'd appreciate it. In the meantime, here's the next part of my quixotic Dan Brown Project. If the 'rents weren't coming, I'd finish it this weekend. As is, though, it'll be sometime late next week, I reckon. This takes waaaaaay more time than I was expecting.
( Spoiler: the book doesn't get any less stupid. )

Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: Pixies - Bird Dream of the Olympus Mons

Those of you who are nerdy enough to watch Buffy and think "Hey, why don't vampires take over the world?" but who are not nerdy enough to be a regular reader of Pharyngula will thank me for linking you to this. The original pdf, complete with some of the math behind the results, is there and is fairly entertaining reading.

And as long as I'm answering dork questions, here, now you know. I have no idea about when it's carrying a coconut, though.

Current Mood: bored!
Current Music: Britney - Womanizer

Last Friday, I changed into shorts in my car for the very first time this year before playing a round of frisbee golf at Edina. This means, of course, that it's almost time for summer to really begin, and that means that it's time to start thinking about the 4th of July. Last year, we had the FAFOJGMSPMADGS, which was all sorts of awesome. This year, the 4th falls on a Saturday, so we can be even more adventurous. So we're having the The Second Annual Fourth Of July Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro Area Disc Golf Scramble: Greater Minnesota Edition, commonly known as the SAFOJGMSPMADGS:GME. Billboards will be up in your neighborhood soon, I'm sure.
( The plans are under here )

Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: MxPx's cover of "Summer of 69"

Fun game time! Under the cut, I'll post the link to an article Shee-ra Hambone sent me. Its title is "11 extinct animals that have been photographed alive", and facebook's handy little preview thing tells me that the first one will be the Tasmanian Tiger. I haven't yet read the rest of the article. So the game we're going to play is simple: name the other 10.
( Make your list before clicking here. My guesses, and then the article, follow. )

Current Mood: here
Current Music: Godsmack - Voodoo

Okay, time to find out if LJ has a maximum post size limit thing. This is easily the longest thing I'll ever post, and it's the longest thing I've ever seen anywhere evar, so here's hoping there's not an LJ-limit.

I am in the midst of liveblogging a book. I've seen people do this for Obama speeches, and for football games, and for movies, but never for something like this. Doesn't mean it's never been done, but I'm going to claim that I'm inventing a new art form here. To kick it off (...and finish it up, as I'll never do this again), I was looking for a really terrible book. Liveblogging To Kill A Mockingbird doesn't really present many opportunities for snark, and if it's not about snark, then what's the point?

So I chose the only thing I could - Dan Brown. ( Wow, this is a long post. )

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Rilo Kiley - I Never

So, a small animal behavior that needs a lot of oomph, eh? Well, when you think of small mammals, you should probably just consider rodents, as they're easily the most speciose order of any size, let alone of small ones. Bats are the second most speciose order overall, but that's obviously not a bat bone. They don't need anything that thick and rugged. Of course, this time you'd be wrong about the rodent thing, but hey, that's a darn fine place to start your considering.

The problem with being a small mammal is that somebody's always trying to eat you. There are several ways to deal with this, of course, and the one in question here is to get underground. That's because those totally odd bones are mole humeruses (humerii?). This is much too technical of a paper for any of you to care about, but it does have nice illustrations of how things all fit together.

I don't have much time to go on about it, which you'll probably be glad for, actually, but here are some good articles about the way it all works:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Which-is-the-Best-Way-of-Digging-69385.shtml
http://www.nps.gov/hafo/naturescience/mole.htm
http://tinyurl.com/ckhxhn

Current Mood: content
Current Music: The Distillers - Seneca Falls

Here's the question edition, in case you missed it. So, from top to bottom in those pictures, we have...

A saber-toothed cat, Smilodon californicus, from here.
A pair of dire wolves, Canis dirus, from here.
A pygmy hippo (along with a blocked out extant hippo), from here.
A wooly rhino, Coelodonta antiquitatis, from here.
And then a cow, Bos taurus, which you can own for only $6600. A steal at twice the price, I assure you.
( and then there's those other bones... )

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Tigers and Monkeys - Vampire In The Dirty City

Hey, pointy111, remember when I tried to make you use hushmail because I'm an anti-federal-government nutjob? (aside: I'd gladly still use it, or just upgrade all the way to pgp's desktop software, except that it only works if you're communicating with somebody with the same level of encryption you have, and nobody else was paranoid enough to do it for very long, so I stopped too.) Well, if we were British, you'd be wishing you'd stuck with it. Because they've decided to go completely off the wall and save every email sent in their country for the next year. Now, they're supposed to need a court order to actually read any of that, but whatdya suppose the chances are that nobody will want to take even a little teeny peek?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

I am, in fact, paranoid enough to just go ahead and assume that our own government is doing something similar. I mean, they've already done it once that we know about, and the taxpayers are the proud owners of the NSA, which is supposed to only monitor foreign communications, but which sometimes kinda forgets. So it wouldn't come as any surprise if somebody was reading every email I send.

And yes, I fully realize that they'd be bored silly. Setting up dinner plans with Sheera Hambone doesn't exactly make for thrilling reading. But I'd certainly hope that I'm not the only one who thinks the "if you're not a criminal terrorist then you have nothing to fear" argument is utter baloney. I mean, come on.

Current Mood: angry
Current Music: Otis Rush - Looking Back

I've been accused of having a strange fascination with skulls. This is patently untrue. Instead, I have a strange fascination with animals, and skulls are the easiest way to identify what I'm looking at. Don't believe that statement?
( Many pictures under here. )

Current Mood: waitin' fer "Hell's Kitchen"
Current Music: Nirvana - Verse Chorus Verse

There are now exactly 165 hours, 55 minutes, and 43...42...41...40 seconds until opening day! Yay!

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Mary Prankster - Piss Off

I got off work three hours early today. I have done absolutely nothing useful with that time. Instead, I've been playing Desktop Tower Defense. Over and over and over and over again. I WILL GET THROUGH THE 10K GOLD MODE!

How, exactly, I accomplish this remains to be seen, unfortunately. It's sooooo hard.

(And yes, I know I'm, like, eight months behind the times on this. What else is new?)

Current Mood: gah!
Current Music: Godsmack - I Stand Alone

If I was feeling all responsible and whatnot, I'd make a big long post explaining all the background with lots of fun pictures and graphs. They'd include things like this explanation of the different types of speciation and some example of a species-area curve. But I'm feeling lazy (and need to save my energy for working out tonight instead of thinking!), so I'm just going to go ahead and ask. It's been bugging me for four or five hours now, and hopefully somebody out there will say something that'll jar my memory. And then I'll probably go ask that blindwatchmaker community, too, because they're more likely to know. No offense, but it's true.

So, given that allopatry is the easiest type of speciation, and given that allopatry is very difficult on continents, how is it that continents came to be so speciose? And I'm not taking "They have more area, and so more available niche space" as an answer. That niche space exists, of course, but how do so many species take advantage of it? It should be noted that I remain EXTREMELY skeptical of the existence of sympatry. I'm much more sympathetic to the existence of parapatric speciation, but still have a hard time thinking it's powerful enough to account for the amazing diversity of continents. Am I just wrong about that? What's going on here?!?

Current Mood: confused
Current Music: Jimi Hendrix - Sweet Angel

Say what you will, but I totally think Rock Band needs more Britney. Also, I have a feeling that it wouldn't take very much, booze-wise, to get me to karaoke her, if ever given the chance.

Current Mood: No, I'm not gay.
Current Music: Oops, I did it again

I often think about the things that made me the way I am. That's mostly so that someday I can use those exact same experiences to insure my future sons are as awesome as their father, of course. But I do wonder why I, alone from all of my friends (and siblings!) who presumably grew up under similar circumstances, do things like check and see what Sid's skull looks like. What causes biophilia?

Aside: I'm not entirely sure I accept E.O. Wilson's biophilia work as being valid, but it should be noted that the wikipedia article on it is entirely bunk. What the heck is that Dawkins crap doing in there?

I have no real idea, to be honest. But I do reckon that this probably helps:
( 1988, so I'm 9. My little sister is 7. Also, those are totally badass shorts I'm wearing. )

Current Mood: good
Current Music: Sons of the Pioneers - Don't Fence Me In

I'm taking Shee-ra Hambone on a date to The Mall tonight. I only mention this because the last time I took a girl on a date to The Mall was August 1st, 2007. This was a notable day for two reasons:

1. I took a girl on a date to The Mall and she agreed to go out with me again afterwords.
2. ( To save your friends-list... )

Current Mood: hee hee hee
Current Music: The Beatles - Norwegian Wood

1. Q: Why do farts stink?
( rest of the list... )

Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: The Beach Boys - All Summer Long

This is an animal that I saw last night. It (the animal, not the skull) probably weighs about 10 pounds or so.



Any guesses?

Current Mood: tricky!
Current Music: Billy Jean's not my lover...

Okay, peeps, I know a challenge when I see one. When Tiff and Pants agree that yesterday's entry may be the cutest thing I've ever posted, something must be done. To that end, here, have some pikas:


Oh, and I'm pretty sure that's David Attenborough, right? I don't know if I've ever actually seen him on video before, but how many other famous-sounding British naturalist narrators can there really be?

Current Mood: dorkified over pikas!
Current Music: Paul Simon - Loves Me Like A Rock

This is a hilariously modern problem to have. I am in the beginnings of a relationship with a gal. This is the first one since I signed up with facebook. Now, at some point, I'll presumably change my facebook status to "In a relationship with Shee-ra Hambone" (...which isn't her real name, sadly, because that'd be totally badass). It's not like we're keeping it hidden from our mutual friends. Sure, we haven't made out on top of spongebobjess or anything, but it's not exactly a secret from anybody we know.

And yet I'm hesitant to change my facebook status. In part, I imagine that's because I'm hesitant to change any internet thing once I get it set. After all, I've had this same Allosaur skull icon for, what, five years now? I fear change, apparently. But there's more to it than that. Changing the status seems to be a fairly public declaration of the relationship. Not that I'm ashamed of it or anything, but instead because it seems to be a major step, commitment-wise. Not that I have a problem with commitment either, understand, but it's still weighing heavily on my mind. I mean, feels almost like I'm proposing!

Current Mood: confused
Current Music: Nena - 99 Red Balloons

Okay, so I saw Rio Bravo this weekend. Pretty good flick, really, considering that Ricky Nelson (and Dean Martin!) is in it. Anything John Wayne and Howard Hawks made together is worth seeing, imho, even though I certainly wouldn't put this one up there with, say, Red River. But that's mostly because I think Red River's probably the best movie John Wayne ever made, although I freely admit I haven't seen all 171 that imdb lists for him, so take my opinion for what you will.
( Lots more stuff under here. )

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Frank Sinatra - Strangers In The Night

Hey, nixve, remember when we walked around downtown Bozeman and looked at all the hilariously overpriced paintings? Remember how they had blocked off a couple of blocks with fire trucks and were doing some sort of work on the gas lines?

Well, somebody didn't do their job right.

Current Mood: ka-boom!
Current Music: The Little Willies - Roly Poly

Part 1 was about a year ago, if you didn't remember. I didn't, but thankfully my workmates did, and so reminded me of the last time I wondered if springtime causes human twitterpation. In that year, I did manage to come up with a much more scientifical way of checking. If there's more twitterpation, then I'd expect birth rates to reflect that. If we define "spring" as being March, April, and May, then there should be a spike in birth rates starting in December.

So, then, guess not. I was pretty torn on what to expect, honestly. After all, as I explained a year ago, the menstrual cycle just doesn't act the same way an estral cycle does, and so I wouldn't really expect the same results. It also turns out (if wikipedia is to be believed) that chimps and orangutans also have menstrual cycles, so any residual behavior would have to be pretty darn basal. But on the other hand, having babies in the spring would sure be handy, because there's so much more food available than in the fall/winter. But on the third hand, if we wanted to have spring babies, we'd have to get twitterpated in July. So quien sabe.

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: ZZ Top - Beatbox

There's an interesting article in the Billings paper today:
( Text under here, neat pics over on the gazoo's website )

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Pixies - Dig For Fire

I just realized that this will probably be my last winter in Minnesota, and I've never been ice fishing, and now I never will. I don't really like the sort of fishing where you just sit in one place and wait for something to happen, but it still makes me a little sad that I've missed out on my chance to do it.

Current Mood: bummed
Current Music: Cream - Wrapping Paper

Every Thursday, I do an hour of aerobic exercise. Not aerobics, mind you, because it's not 1985 and I'm not gay, but just an hour on the elliptical. I had a big lunch today, and I'm still kind of full from it, so I'll probably only do it at level 14. That won't work out my legs at all, but whatever.
( *spits food out into trash* )

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: NIN - Gave Up